Irish in the top 10 oldest languages in the world - 3000 years Primitive Irish arrived about 500bc, the earliest written Celtic language in Europe, but it evolved from earlier insular Celtic. Ireland was later exceptional in blending Latin & old Irish, monks even going from one to the other mid-sentence. Ireland’s golden age of craft, culture and scholarship, 400 - 1000ad, marked millennia of uninterrupted development that made it one of the most advanced civilisations in Europe - only after the Romans and Greeks (Michael Richter). One law, language, shared culture, shared sport (hurling), shared heritage…. Irish identity predates the vast majority of nation states.